This book presents the current state of the problem of describing the musculoskeletal system of a person. Models of the destruction of the endoskeleton and the restoration of its functions using exoskeleton are presented. A description is given of new approaches to modeling based on the use of weightless rods of variable length with concentrated masses. The practical application to the tasks of numerical simulation of the movements of the musculoskeletal system of a person is described. Exoskeleton models with variable-length units based on absolutely hard sections and sections that change their telescopic type length have been developed. The book is intended for specialists in the field of theoretical mechanics, biomechanics, robotics and related fields. The book will be useful to teachers, as well as graduate students, undergraduates and senior students of higher educational institutions, whose research interests lie in the modeling of anthropomorphic biomechanical systems.

Lower extremity powered exoskeletons (LEPE) are powered orthoses that enable persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) to ambulate independently. Since locomotor therapy must be specific and resemble natural gait patterns, to promote motor recovery, current LEPE control architectures may be inappropriate since they typically use able-bodied, pre-recorded reference position and force data, at normal walking speeds, to define exoskeleton motion and predict torque assistance. This thesis explored two aspects: a) able-bodied walking dynamics between 0.2 m/s and the person's self-paced speed to provide a biomimetic basis for LEPE control and b) musculoskeletal modelling of LEPE-human dynamics. For walking dynamics, appropriate regression equations were developed for stride, kinematic, and kinetic parameters. These equations can be used by LEPE designers when constructing angular trajectories and forces for LEPE control at any given speed. An inflection point at 0.5 m/s was identified for temporal stride parameters; therefore, different walking strategies should be considered for walking above and below this point. The full body musculoskeletal model (Anybody) of persons with SCI using the ARKE LEPE incorporated all external contact forces and inertial properties (exoskeleton and person) and was driven using real LEPE SCI user kinematics and kinetics. For the lower extremity, large dorsiflexion range of motion, large device anterior tilt, incomplete knee extension, and uncontrolled center of pressure forward progression lifted the heel during stance. This triggered step termination before trajectory tracking at the knee and hip was complete, thereby reducing hip extension, increasing knee flexion through stance, increasing knee and hip support moments, and increasing thigh and shank strap reaction forces. This also shortened effective participant limb length, further shortening step-length and LEPE walking speed. For the upper-limbs, LEPE users walked with more anterior trunk tilt and twice the shoulder flexion angle, compared with persons with incomplete SCI. This increased forces and moments at the crutch, shoulder, and elbow. Crutch floor contact periods were 30-40% longer, resulting in upper-extremity joint impulses 5 to 12 times greater than previously reported. Improved step-completion and upright posture would reduce support loads on the crutches and upper-limbs, and would further improve LEPE-human lower limb interaction forces. Improved upright posture and LEPE-human interaction forces would enhance mobility and quality of movement for people with SCI.

This work presents the development of an upper extremity exoskeleton for experimental applications in the neuroscience field. The first chapter gives a general description of the anatomy of the human arm and introduces the major movements of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints. Then, the state of the art of exoskeletons and their different applications, features, and limitations are presented. The second chapter presents the mechanical design and the electronic platform our prototype. The calibration and signal processing procedures of the control and encoder feedback signals are discussed. The geometric, kinematic and dynamic models of the robot are calculated, simulated and validated. In the third chapter, the identification of the dynamic parameters of the robot is treated. It leads to an estimate of the real dynamic model employed in the control of the exoskeleton. Then, a new method for the gravity compensation of serial robots is developed and validated. It offers a simple and robust control alternative and the possibility to operate in a passive and transparent mode. In the last chapter, the control of the exoskeleton is addressed, three control strategies are presented, tested and compared. A control based on the gravity and friction compensation was particularly appropriate for our applications. Then, an experimental protocol is developed and applied on a sample of twelve persons. It allows the evaluation of the visual and proprioceptive abilities of humans to explicitly or implicitly recognize their own movements. Finally, an exhaustive statistical analysis of the results is conducted. It gives substantial evidence of an implicit discrimination between self and others' movements manifested by a clear advantage in the recognition of the specificities of ones own movements reconstructed among others.

Wearable Robotics: Systems and Applications provides a comprehensive overview of the entire field of wearable robotics, including active orthotics (exoskeleton) and active prosthetics for the upper and lower limb and full body. In its two major sections, wearable robotics systems are described from both engineering perspectives and their application in medicine and industry. Systems and applications at various levels of the development cycle are presented, including those that are still under active research and development, systems that are under preliminary or full clinical trials, and those in commercialized products. This book is a great resource for anyone working in this field, including researchers, industry professionals and those who want to use it as a teaching mechanism. Provides a comprehensive overview of the entire field, with both engineering and medical perspectives Helps readers quickly and efficiently design and develop wearable robotics for healthcare applications

This book contains extended, in-depth presentations of the plenary talks from the 16th French-German-Polish Conference on Optimization, held in Kraków, Poland in 2013. Each chapter in this book exhibits a comprehensive look at new theoretical and/or application-oriented results in mathematical modeling, optimization, and optimal control. Students and researchers involved in image processing, partial differential inclusions, shape optimization, or optimal control theory and its applications to medical and rehabilitation technology, will find this book valuable. The first chapter by Martin Burger provides an overview of recent developments related to Bregman distances, which is an important tool in inverse problems and image processing. The chapter by Piotr Kalita studies the operator version of a first order in time partial differential inclusion and its time discretization. In the chapter by Günter Leugering, Jan Sokołowski and Antoni Żochowski, nonsmooth shape optimization problems for variational inequalities are considered. The next chapter, by Katja Mombaur is devoted to applications of optimal control and inverse optimal control in the field of medical and rehabilitation technology, in particular in human movement analysis, therapy and improvement by means of medical devices. The final chapter, by Nikolai Osmolovskii and Helmut Maurer provides a survey on no-gap second order optimality conditions in the calculus of variations and optimal control, and a discussion of their further development.

In this thesis study it is intended to design a wearable exoskeleton robot which will replace paralytic or disable people.s legs and provide to walk. The wearable exoskeleton robot will be an intelligent system that fulfill the gait necessities, climb the slopes up and down, and remove the disadvantages of the wheelchairs and mobility aid vehicles. Robot will be a wearable device like a trouser and it will work to carry out daily duties for users. Robot will increase user.s maneuver capabilities and support users. legs and aid walking action for users thanks to 3-one degree of freedom (DOF) joints which are designed for each leg and are powered by DC electric actuators. Design of the wearable exoskeleton robot includes, modeling and designing of the robot using a parametric solid modeling computer program (Solidworks), selection of the most suitable material for the design characters and robot manufacturing processes, strength analysis of the critical part of the robot, mathematical modeling of the system, design and manufacturing of the test machine and finding the most suitable walking combination by investigating degree of freedoms of each joints on the legs. In addition to mechanical design of the wearable exoskeleton robot, an electronic circuit is designed and manufactured in order to control each joint movement order and time in walking action. Moreover, in order to control the robot by the users, a keypad unit is manufactured on the robot and necessity functions are described in the program. As a result of this thesis; a wearable exoskeleton robot is manufactured to be used as a walking assistant.

The goal of this book is to give a comprehensive and systematic exposition of the mechanics of nonholonomic systems, including the kinematics and dynamics of nonholonomic systems with classical nonholonomic constraints, the theory of stability of nonholonomic systems, technical problems of the directional stability of rolling systems, and the general theory of electrical machines. The book contains a large number of examples and illustrations.